Tre laughed. “Man, you and this throwback hip-hop obsession. One of these days you gon' leave the ‘90s.”
“One of these days you gon' stop making mediocre sex tapes. We’ve all got our flaws.”
“Ain’t nothing mediocre about my stroke.”
We both laughed, and I pulled off toward the football field.
3/
mr. suit & tie
julian
Football practice was calculated chaos.Seven and eight-year-olds did not listen, no matter how many cones we set out or how many times I told them to square their shoulders. Practice had just started, and I’d already counted three water bottles rolling toward the street, two boys wrestling over the same ball, and one shoelace knotted so badly I’d thought about cutting it off.
Still, I kept the whistle tight between my teeth. Zion was running defensive line drills, and Tre was supposed to be teaching the receivers a route, but was instead teaching them a touchdown dance, and Raschad had taken a small group to run drills on the far side of the field.
“Bring it in! Line ’em up!” I blew a short blast, and the boys scrambled into a ragged line. I dropped to one knee, level with them, and tapped the chest plate of Zhaire’s pads. “Good stance, Z. Keep your base wide. Bryce, chin strap tight. Precision, fellas. That’s how we’ll win this season. Water break!”
They nodded, their little faces serious as they scrambled to the sideline to grab their water bottles. I stood, scanning the field, and my eyes drifted past the turf to the bleachers.
Most of the parents had done their drop-off and left. Practice ran two hours, and most folks had better things to do than watch eight-year-olds chase a ball around in the heat. Very few parents stayed. She was one of them, sitting in the middle row, off by herself, well clear of the two or three mothers down low with their iced coffees. She hadn’t taken her eyes off her son since the first whistle.
Alyssa Carter, Raschad’s sister, down from Jersey for the summer with her son Micah, who had become tied at the hip with my nephew Zhaire. I’d crossed paths with her at Simone’s a week ago, and maybe a year and a half before that in Jersey for Zhaire’s sixth birthday. Both times we’d traded a hello and kept it moving.
There she sat, spine straight, shoulders back, watching the field likeshe was already about to come half out of her seat. She wore a honey-highlighted pixie cut that required confidence and bone structure to pull off. She had both. I looked exactly as long as it took to register her, and not a second longer.
“Offense! Run the sweep!” Tre called.
Micah lined up at running back. He was soft-spoken, and half a size smaller than most of the boys, but I noticed early he had grit. The ball snapped and he took the handoff, then hesitated, hunting a hole that wasn’t there, and another kid came through the line and put him on the ground. Good hit. Micah went down, the ball squirting loose, and when the whistle killed the play, he didn’t get up. He stayed on his knees, shoulders heaving, tears cutting through.
I walked over, took his hand, pulled him up, then walked him off to the sideline. I wasn’t about to let the rest of the boys watch him cry. I crouched in front of him and held him by both shoulder pads so he had to look at me.
“Look at me, Micah.” His eyes were wide and glassy. “The ground is a terrible place to stay. In this game and out of it, you’re gonna get knocked down. But we don’t stay down. We take a breath, wipe our face, square our shoulders, and get back up. Every time. You a boy who folds, or are you a WadeHouse Knight?”
“A-a Knight,” he hitched.
“Then act like one. Head up. Go on back out there.”
I stood, expecting him to jog back to the huddle, but he never got the chance. Before he could take a step, a voice cut across the humid air.
“EXCUSE ME!”
I turned, and there she was, storming onto the field like she had a personal vendetta against every blade of grass in her way. She was taller than average, maybe five-eight or nine. Slender but with curves that made it hard not to notice how she moved. Tank top and shorts that showed off her long legs. Gold hoop earrings catching the sun. Every step clipped into the turf with her hips counting out the beat of her walk.
I didn’t stare long. Just enough to register what anyone with eyes would: she was striking.Stunning. She stopped in front of me, tipping her head back to take in all six-three of me, yet still managed to look at me like I was the smaller one.
“So you’re the coach.”
“All season.”
“Hmph.” She ran a slow look down me and back up, and whatevershe found did nothing for my case. “And that gives you the right to be out here barking at my baby like he’s a grown man behind on his rent?”
I glanced toward Micah, who was trying to look very interested in his cleats. “He fumbled a handoff,” I said. “I pulled him aside to?—”
She lifted one finger, not quite in my face. “Don't 'fumbled the handoff' me, Mr. Suit and Tie."
I looked down at my t-shirt and joggers, then back up at her.
